Wanglaoji launches Sichuan pepper flavor, curiosity becomes the new traffic code for the brand!

How do brands use their unique marketing tactics to create gimmicks and successfully attract the public? Let’s find some new marketing codes for brands to use unique tactics. I hope it will be inspiring to everyone.

With young people's unremitting pursuit of personalized and fashionable products, brands have also smelled the business opportunities and tried to grab users' attention with more alternative and personalized marketing. This has also led to the emergence of strange products in the market, such as Luzhou Laojiao perfume, Mayinglong lipstick, and the Gansu Museum's Horse Stepping on Flying Swallow doll.

In the new media era, many brands' curiosity-based marketing uses the power of social platforms, employing bizarre content to arouse young people's interest in knowledge. Driven by consumers' dual needs for social interaction and personalized shopping, curiosity-based brand marketing spreads in social circles and becomes viral.

Nowadays, how do brands use curious marketing tactics to create gimmicks and successfully attract the public? Perhaps, we can find some new marketing codes for brands to use curious marketing tactics from Wanglaoji, White Elephant, Choushui and Internet celebrity snacks.

1. Brand hunting marketing awards, which one attracts you more?

1. Wang Laoji: Products with unique flavors

Marketing novelties are common. Recently, Wanglaoji tried something novel in its product taste and launched a herbal tea with the flavor of Sichuan pepper and green grape, which attracted public attention.

Wanglaoji uses gradient green for its product packaging, which creates a fresh and natural visual effect. The combination of Sichuan peppercorns and green grapes in the product ingredients easily arouses the public's curiosity, and they want to see what unexpected taste Wanglaoji's new sparkling water has.

To be honest, sometimes bold innovation can indeed bring high attention and sales. At present, this new product of Wanglaoji is selling like crazy and has entered the pre-sale stage. At the same time, the official also interacted with consumers. Although it feels a bit like Wang Po selling melons, I have to admit that Wanglaoji caught my attention.

2. White Elephant: Spreading a little curiosity

Coincidentally, while Wanglaoji's Sichuan pepper flavored herbal tea has attracted public attention, the time-honored brand White Elephant has taken a different approach and launched a product with the slogan "White Elephant Super Fragrant Coriander Noodles" , which has also attracted public attention. In addition to the novelty of the long and repetitive slogan, it has also aroused more consumers' interest in White Elephant's new coriander-flavored product.

In naming the product, Baiyang used "coriander" from the seasoning as the product name, linking the brand name with the seasoning with a prominent taste in the product. While highlighting the aroma brought by coriander, it also achieved the integration of the brand name and product characteristics.

On the product packaging, Baiyang uses coriander as the central visual to directly convey product information, allowing users to have a stronger association with the product's taste.

The physical product contains 5 real corianders to meet the preferences of coriander lovers. It not only brings users a dual experience of vision and taste, but also perfectly solves the pain point of most instant noodle products that "the actual product does not match the original picture" for consumers. Combined with the green noodles, it helps the brand to achieve product differentiation.

3. Yineng: Product name is curious

Like White Elephant, Yineng’s durian mango flavored beverage has a unique product name. Although the product name is “Ugly Water”, as a consumer it is difficult for me to match the product with the name.

In today's world where everyone is pursuing good looks, Yi Neng has gone against the trend and taken the lead in integrating the connotations of beauty and ugliness into its brand name. This unconventional and bizarre product naming method does have an inherent advantage in attracting attention.

From product naming, packaging design to ingredient provision, all of them have the characteristics of curiosity, which successfully attracted attention. The uniqueness of the new product name helped the brand to successfully stand out and leverage market traffic.

4. Snacks: Curious product design

In addition, there are many snacks that have also caught the trend of hunting for novelties in marketing. Elements such as teeth, coal briquettes, soap, melon seeds, pork belly, pig's trotters, and brains have all become sources of inspiration for product design. In short, there is nothing that designers cannot do, except what you can't think of.

2. What is the purpose of the brand’s weird behavior?

1. Taste marketing to conquer consumers’ stomachs

The brand's disruptive innovation in the taste of its products is actually a low-cost attention marketing campaign, which is intended to boost sales.

The debate about the taste of food has never stopped. For example, during the Dragon Boat Festival, people are always attracted by the discussion about the sweet and salty rice dumplings from the north and south. Many brands also use this user debate to create products in order to stimulate users' interest in the products.

It is obvious that products such as Sichuan pepper flavored herbal tea, coriander flavored instant noodles, ginger flavored carbonated drinks, garlic coffee, and aged vinegar cola are all unique flavors that the brand has racked its brains to "develop" and make the curious taste the selling point of the product, thereby stimulating the public's curiosity and boosting sales.

2. Novel products to attract attention

Brands capture users' attention and minds by launching innovative flavors, marketing, designs and product names, thereby achieving the goal of capturing users.

The reason why brands try their best to engage in curiosity marketing is actually a competition for user attention between brands. In the era of attention economy, attention represents the brand's revenue and marketing value. It is also an important means for brands to increase their investment in new-era culture and keep pace with the times. It can be seen that attention is currency, culture, and communication value.

At the same time, curiosity is the attraction of appearance, the room for imagination left by scene creation, the visual and taste impact brought by the sense of conflict, and it is also one of the strategies to create a new brand image and tap into marketing value.

3. What should brands pay attention to when engaging in curiosity marketing?

1. Marketing should be done in moderation. Curiosity is not real intimidation.

It is worth noting that curiosity does not mean intimidation. If the design and taste are too shocking, it is better to advise the brand not to launch it, as it is easy to bring negative psychological hints to users. The original vision of the brand to play with users has become that users feel that the brand is playing tricks on them.

For example, on Xiaohongshu, a netizen posted a picture of a sparkling water with a design similar to White Cat dishwashing liquid. It is said to be a joint product between the brand and White Cat. If such a joint product is just to gain traffic by relying on gimmicks, then the marketing is undoubtedly successful. However, the joint product with dishwashing liquid can easily give people an association of sparkling water with detergent bubbles. How many people will pay for it?

Marketing should be done in moderation. In the process of creating something unique, brands should not turn it into something that really scares people. It may seem that they have gained traffic due to their curiosity, but it is easy to bring trauma to consumers and fail to achieve the ultimate goal of marketing, which will be counterproductive.

In addition to sensory and psychological discomfort, brands should also consider whether their own curiosity-seeking marketing matches the brand tone and whether it is conducive to brand building. Obviously, the current curiosity-seeking marketing model has changed from simply creating marketing gimmicks to gain traffic and stimulate the public's curiosity to a marketing strategy that has both long-term and short-term effects. From a long-term perspective, it is a marketing in the direction of brand building, brand value and monetary value, and from a short-term perspective, it is an important magic weapon for brands to boost sales.

Author: Mr. Bingfa

Source: WeChat public account "Marketing Art of War (ID: lanhaiyingxiao)"